Why is "liberal" a dirty word?

Yeah, for the most part that would be the general consensus. Of course i have to disagree with your rather brief assessment of fascism and your notion that adherence to law is any kind of logical standard. I'm curious Max, what is your opinion of the way Singapore runs it's affairs, and what is your opinion of the Objectivist Movement (i've lately found myself to be a Rand fan of sorts)?

 

Ahhh, lol I actually posted about Singapore and its laws.

I LOVE it, LOVE it, have even thought of learning the language but I don't think so.

I will attempt to instead shape Canada.

 

Did you know Ayn Rand was a mistress of Phillip Rothschild?

 

*spits out tea*

The-Fraser-Institute-a-sphincter-says-what?

You realize that Fraser Institute is made up of neo-conservative ideals and money grubbing politicians and elitists, right?

 

rat, i'm just not interested, thank you.

 

Of course I know that. As a matter of fact, I can't think of any institutes or think tanks that aren't elitist-funded and controlled. But the facts are facts, and I believe this has been confirmed by other sources as well. I just didn't want to be accused of pulling facts out of my ass.

 

LOL. I laugh inside.

Well, you essentially just did. It ain't pretty. Stinker.

 

Uhhh, Liberalism is not Socialism in my country. Maybe in yours, but not in mine.

When you consider the full international range of possibilities, liberalism and conservatism are generally considered to be very closely related, almost the same, differing only in degree. Both liberalism and conservatism support a means of distribution based primarily on merit (how hard, smart, and/or long you work), though conservatives tend towards believing that only merit should be considered.

In the US, most liberals work for a living, pay taxes, believe in the basic principles espoused by Adam Smith, and support capitalism and free enterprise. Many are entrepreneurs themselves, and have their own side businesses, making birdhouses or beads, or writing code, or even mowing lawns on the side. With occasional exceptions, they're very certainly against banning free enterprise.

However, we also tend to believe that some risks/costs are best pooled and shared- accidents/illness for instance- and believe in the marketplace as the best solution to those problems until market failure is proven, as is the case currently with health care. The invisible hand simply doesn't work in all situations- liberals recognize this, and your typical Republican hasn't even heard the term "market failure" before.

The liberal/conservative thing is muddied a bit because generally conservative meant "resistant to change" with liberalism meaning "willing to keep trying new things and measure the outcomes." However, these days, "conservatives" want radical change- they want to go back to 1350 and they want to go back to those Goode Olde Days now (as long as they can keep their appliances, tha tis). Meanwhile, liberals desparately try to keep things the same in many ways, or gain back rights that American-born people had under King George III but lost under today's Republican religion of fear and terror (e.g. Habeas Corpus).

The few conservatives I still speak to support the president, support the war, still can't find Iraq on a map, believe in the torture of anyone accused of something, amd really truly want a police state with tanks and guys with machine guns on every street corner. They want all communications monitored, all citizens drug tested at least monthly, and consider the entire concept of the "bill of rights" to be a slogan of homosexual devil-worshipping communist muslims. And they claim to be open-minded compared to most peole they associate with. I sometimes exaggerate, but I'm not doing so this time.

 

Exactly. Canada is more of a Liberal-Conservative country than it is a Socialist country, by far. People tend to think our government dips its hands in everything.

Canada and the USA both have different political cultures shaped through the fragment theory and they both have distinct differences in culture as a result.

I'll post more tonight.

 

Where have you been?

Canada has been Liberal-Socialist for the past 30 fucking years.

Since Trudeau fucked up this country.

Oh yeah a big difference between Socialists and Liberals is that 99% of Liberals are Pro-Abortion while Socialists tend to be 50/50 on that issue, also Socialists tend to go against Euthanasia.

 

Why is socialism a dirty word? We have plenty of "socialized" institutions that work quite well-schools, libraries, fire departments, etc.

So, I am proud to be called a liberal and don't care if it's equated with socialism.

 

Yes, liberalism and conservatism are both closely related in that both are administered from the top, are funded by the same big banks and transnational corporations, and use socialism (albeit veiled socialism) to increase the size and power of the state and its control over the people. Both are hollow labels which are absolutely meaningless, but are good for creating polarization amongst the public. In the past, both were largely for minimal government, which meant more freedom and less infringement upon civil liberties. The two were once largely along the lines of what would today be called libertarianism. Today, they both exist along the lines of socialism, and both operate as a vehicle for the corporations that really run the government from behind the left/right facade. That’s more accurately called fascism. Looking back at communist and fascist dictatorships, the state would take over the corporations. Today, the corporations have taken over the state. The resulting outcome is identical. That’s why, regardless of who’s in office – Democrat or Republican – we see government getting bigger – not smaller. We see people losing, not gaining freedom. We see the standard of living decreasing, not increasing.

People have been conditioned to see the government as a father figure – as their good shepherd, which exists to care for them and make all their important decisions for them. That is socialism. It is a form of perpetual childhood. And while the public are busy eating their genetically-modified foods and immersing themselves in copious amounts of mindless entertainment and sports, a totalitarian system is beginning to emerge, seemingly without the people’s knowledge or concern. People are literally paying to have their own shackles built, all in the name of the love that big brother has to offer.

Conservatives and liberals alike use the threat of terrorism to increase the size and power of the state. Both sides vote to pass totalitarian legislation such as the Patriot Act (1 & 2) and the Military Commissions Act. Today’s "conservative" politicians rely more on fear-mongering, while today’s liberal politicians rely on promises of more social programs and government healthcare that are supposedly for the people’s benefit. Both serve to increase the size of government and people’s dependency on that government. What we are dealing with is a system that serves to manage and control people under the guise of helping them and protecting them, and basically being their daddy.

You talk about market failure, but you fail to address government intervention as being a cause of that failure to begin with. You don’t talk about the private Federal Reserve cartel, and how they manage the economy by creating artificially low interest rates and printing fiat money out of thin air.

As an astute follower of history, and a person who truly understands the way in which governments operate, I can see they always create the problem to justify the solution. That solution is always more control over people’s lives. They want as many people to be dependent on the system as possible, this way they are easier to control. Those at the top HATE competition. They want everyone equal – equal as peasants.

So, unlike most people, I choose not to get into the left vs. right debate. This is a controlled debate that is administered from the top and pushed by the media. I see beyond that. I realize that 98% of the public – whether they are right or left – is under a form of mass conditioning, and will pretty much go along with whatever the government offers as long as it appears to be for whatever "side" they choose to embrace. One side could not exist without the other, so they give you both sides, knowing you will pick either Coke or Pepsi without ever looking beyond what they offer to you.

 

yeah, i'm sure you arent.

 

Yeah, I know the type. They think they want these things, but they really don't. I'm sure some people thought the Spanish Inquisition sounded great on paper too, but I'm sure it didn't play out the way they expected.

 

Lemme see, in the past 23 years I have been living in Canada, and the other 7 years before that I was enjoying my former life as a wild Siberian Tiger. Where were you living these past 30 years?

If by "fucking" up this him here der country by Trudeau you mean giving us a Canadian Constitution, then I don't want to hear anymore from a shitpipe like you.

I'm going to tackle that last sentence. It makes no sense.

 

Several of the American colonies started out as havens for those seeking refuge from religious and political domination, and the American polity as a whole was formed in an act of revolution against the parliamentary and imperial authority of Great Britain. It is thus not surprising that individual freedom and suspicion of government have remained dominant themes of American political thought.

Individualism is, of course, part of the larger heritage European thought and culture, but it does not dominate European life in the same way that it dominates American life.

The origins of Canada are quite different. The first Europeans in Canada were the French settlers of Acadia and New France, who never rebelled against imperialist rule but were transferred from one empire to another. Then came the Loyalists, the refugees from the American revolution who either left or were driven out because of their continuing allegiance to the British Crown.

There are, to be sure, great differences among regional subcultures in both the United States and Canada; but, in general, Canada's distinctive origins have made its culture more collectivist and deferential than the American.

*goes to make some toast*

 

yeah that's what we said. it's socialist. :tongue:

 

Lemme finish with the fragment theory!

Throughout Canadian history, governments have been suspicious of the individualistic market process and have tended to opt for non-market solutions to economic and social problems. Interestingly, these approaches can be either more conservative or more socialist than the market solutions typically resorted to in the United States. On the right, Canadian governments have a long history of subsidizing profit-making corporations and protecting them from competition. For example, Canadian anti-combines legislation, which is supposed to outlaw price fixing and other conspiracies in restraint of trade, is so weak as to be virtually meaningless. There is nothing in Canadian history corresponding to the government-enforced breakup of large corporations in the oil, steel, sugar, tobacco, and telephone industries that occurred in the United States early in the 20th century, or to the more-recent attempt by the United States Justice Department to prosecute Microsoft for alleged monopolistic practices in the computer software industry.

On the left, Canadian governments, with the support of politicians from all parties, have created programs of public medical insurance and family benefits that have no counterpart in the United States. The common denominator is greater confidence in government and less confidence in the unaided individual.

It isn't a socialistic aspect of our culture that makes us work together in a parliamentary democracy, it's more of a collectivist notion of sticking together and doing things for ourselves that is embedded into our history and culture and forces us to trudge through the paperwork. Capisce?

This is the reverse of the American pattern of suspicion of government and confidence in, even glorification of, the individual.

It's unsurprising that these differences in political culture between Canada and the United States are linked to different forms of national identity.

*makes some tea*

 

Exactly. Americans have seen too many westerns. Their idea of solving a problem is isolating themselves and/or killing someone.

 

Way to generalize there, pal. I can think of plenty of Americans who aren't like that -- myself included.